The trap of "Mine"

"The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell and we must keep them doing so.  Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they 'own' their bodies."  -Screwtape (Senior Demon)

One of my favorite scenes from a Disney Pixar movie is the scene in "Finding Nemo" where Nemo is trapped on the dock trying to get back in the water and the flock of seagulls see him.  Their voices, in seagull like fashion, is an orchestra of one word, "mine."

Do we realize the trap of that one word?  It, like a cancer, breeds a mentality that evades our entire soul that under-girds our sin and brokenness.  When I think my body is mine then my satisfaction physically becomes my leading muse.  If I think my time is mine, then you are my enemy if you demand any of it in ways that don't serve "my" purposes.  If I think my money is mine then I stand directly in the way of God's redeeming of the world since his people are his means of redemption through Jesus.

The world becomes about me and even God becomes something that I, in the most recessed parts of my mind think, is mine to manipulate and broker to satisfy my needs, desires and longings.  

In my life it's subtle.  Like Screwtape declares, it starts at childhood with the possessive word of mine and secretly leaks into every facet of my concise and subconscious.  "My wife", as I introduce her, then is for my pleasure, needs and service.  "My kids" are not something then I am responsible to God for to lead as scripture says, "in the way they should go," but the way I want them to go to feed some swelling ego in me.

It's subtle in my life but rears it's head often.  It causes pain in my relationships and doesn't allow God to be the center of my world.  I wonder how life would look different if I realized the truth of ownership...

"And all the time the joke is that the word 'Mine' in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything.  In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say 'Mine'of each thing that exists, and specifically of each man."  -Screwtape (Senior Demon)